from the umm... dept

After some have been blaming the Blackberry for facilitating the London riots, it seems that some politicians are hanging their hopes on that to the point that they actually think that shutting down Blackberry's messaging feature will help. MP David Lammy apparently is asking RIM to shut off its Blackberry Messaging Service because nothing quells a bunch of angry, rioting young people like trying to cut off their ability to communicate.

from the oh-come-on dept

Steve Kavanagh, the deputy assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan police, said that "really inflamatory, inaccurate" messages on Twitter were mainly to blame for the disorder. "Social media and other methods have been used to organise these levels of greed and criminality," he said at a press conference on Monday afternoon.

Ah, right, just like vocal cords, pamphlets, telephones and other communication tools "were mainly to blame" for previous riots. Hint to the Metropolitan police: if you're going to always blame the tool, you're not going to do a very good job dealing with riots. If people want to speak out, they'll figure out a way to speak out. It's not the technology that is to blame. The technology is just a tool, and if you block off one path, you can be damn sure that they'll figure out another path instead.

Of course, the downside of officials misleadingly blaming the technology is that you get folks like this Dutch politician who took to Twitter about this to ask why police don't just turn off Blackberry Messenger in London -- perhaps not realizing that shutting that channel of communications down wouldn't stop anything -- but likely would anger people even more.

from the time-to-stop-using-your-blackberry dept

A couple years ago, the Indian government started demanding that RIM give them a backdoor to read encrypted Blackberry email messages. At the time, RIM insisted that was technically impossible due to end-user encryption (something that's been called into question due to RIM's agreements with other countries, such as Saudi Arabia). A few months after that exchange, India announced that it didn't matter any more because it had cracked the encryption, and could spy on messages at will.

The telecom department has rejected the interception solution offered by Canada's (RIM) for its secure corporate email service. What's more is that it has spurned RIM's technical solution for decoding all chat communication on the popular BlackBerry Messenger service...

In an internal note, dated September 28, reviewed by ET, the telecom department's security wing claims security agencies have been unable to intercept or monitor secure email communication made through the (BES) in readable format. "RIM maintains that it does not have the keys that can be offered to security agencies for converting secure corporate email into readable format," said a senior DoT official with direct knowledge of the matter. The DoT internal note claims law enforcement agencies have failed to intercept chats on the BlackBerry Messenger platform, which runs counters to the home ministry's recent position that it is satisfied with the interception solution offered by RIM.

Reading between the lines, it sounds like RIM is still sticking to the fact that, thanks to end-user encryption, it simply can't reveal the message contents -- but it sounds like it agreed to offer access to other information, which the Indian government feels is not enough. Of course, for all of India's rather public admission that it wants to spy on all sorts of communications, it doesn't seem to recognize that it's scaring companies away from doing business in India, as the threat of having communications spied upon is too big a risk.

from the according-to-some... dept

We've had plenty of stories over the years about how the whole barriers between "work" and "life" continue to blur, and that's causing problems in some areas. Two years ago, we noted that some employees were upset to have to sign documents making it clear that checking email on Blackberries would not count towards overtime work. Last year, we questioned if paying employees hourly wages still made sense in many cases because of situations like this. The issue has come up again, as a Chicago police officer is suing for overtime for use of his Blackberry during off-hours. Obviously, there are some jobs where paying hourly could make sense, but if it's a job that's going to require a Blackberry and regularly checking in, it seems like it shouldn't be paid hourly, but as an exempt employee that gets paid a straight salary.

from the can't-be-monitored dept

Ash Crill alerts us to the news that the United Arab Emirates has announced plans to ban the use of Blackberries, and that Saudi Arabia has announced its intention to do the same. The issue is one we've seen before. The way the Blackberry works is all the data is encrypted and sent through RIM's servers. This pisses off governments who want to spy on the data. RIM, in the past, has noted that it has no way of spying on the email, even if some governments claim to have figured it out anyway (a claim that seems somewhat dubious as that same government later demanded RIM break the encrytpion again). It appears that a lot of folks in the UAE are quite upset about this -- especially as parts of the UAE (Dubai in particular) have spent the last decade plus trying to present themselves as an ideal place for foreign business activity.

Of course, last time this happened (with RIM, at least), RIM pointed out that there's simply no way for it to decrypt email sent by users, since it's based on an encryption key set up by the end user. In response, the Indian government claimed that it had cracked the encryption used by Blackberries and was able to monitor messages sent via those devices. Of course, the fact that it's now pressuring RIM to format messages in easily spied-upon ways, certainly suggests the news of the cracking of Blackberry's encryption was somewhat exaggerated.

from the now-about-the-IM dept

There were some stories yesterday saying that, despite earlier worries he'd be forced to give it up, President Obama was able to keep his Blackberry -- and now the White House has confirmed it. Apparently, some security software has been added, and a very limited number of people will know the email address. Also, it appears that the administration is noting that the Presidential Records Act does allow an exception for strictly personal emails. So, while the President is being told to consider any emails he sends to be public, strictly personal email to friends or family will likely not be kept and revealed. What isn't entirely clear is who determines what is, and what is not, personal. In the meantime, how long until we hear about the first Obama-email-inspired phishing scam? You know someone's going to try to use a fake Obama email address to try to scam people... Now, let's see what they can do about giving instant messaging back to White House staffers.

from the details-missing dept

Earlier this year, India demanded that RIM allow it to easily snoop on any email messages sent via Blackberry devices. The company explained that since the end user sets the encryption key, there's simply no way to provide a backdoor to snoop on the messages. However, now the government is proudly claiming that it's cracked the code and can now monitor Blackberry messages on various mobile operator networks. The details are quite vague, especially an offhand comment about how this is "wholly for non-enterprise solutions." That would suggest, then, that enterprise Blackberry messages may remain secure. It also raises questions about whether or not the mobile operators in question are simply providing access to their mail servers. Either way, the whole thing seems weird -- including the government's effort to publicize the fact that it's spying on Blackberry messages.

from the so-sorry dept

A few months back, we noted that the Indian government was demanding that RIM let government officials snoop on emails sent via Blackberry devices, or they would be banned in India. I'm not sure why it took so long for RIM to point this out, but it finally has explained to the government the nature of its encryption scheme which means that RIM itself cannot decrypt messages sent via the network, since they're based on an encryption key set up by the end user. It's not clear how India is going to respond, though the article notes the two sides are "talking."

from the suing-RIM dept

We recently noted the challenges facing Motorola, as it's been unable to continue to innovate in a way that customers desire in the handset business. Unfortunately, it looks like Motorola is choosing the all-too-common strategy among those who fail in the marketplace: they start suing for patent infringement. Motorola has now decided that since it hasn't been able to beat RIM's Blackberry in the marketplace, it's simply going to sue the company for patent infringement instead. Of course, as in any good patent nuclear war, RIM has fired back with its own patent infringement countersuit, meaning that both companies will be tied up with lawyers and judges, throwing away money that could have gone towards actually innovating and actually competing in the marketplace.